Lowrestv.com Status and future

[heyvern]

Have you ever dug yourself a hole and couldn't see a way out of it?

That's how I feel about lowrestv.com. I have been struggling to figure out how to handle this without completely throwing in the towel.

What happened was insidious and is no excuse. I got busy with other work. Very busy. I left a few weeks go by without a new tutorial because of my work load and schedule. Then a few weeks became a few months. Couldn't sleep worrying about it. And of course it involves MONEY which is even worse.

This has been one of those things that sits in my head all the time... what should I do? How do I fix this?

I want to do the right thing. I also would like to start creating tutorials again but with simpler expectations. I plan to make the tutorials free after this whole thing has been resolved with current members.

--------------------------------------------


Two possible solutions offered to all past and current members of Lowrestv

Two options (I hope you pick option A for obvious reasons)

Option A.

I plan to offer two amazing "2.5D" characters based on my head bone rig (see a sample of this in the content for Anime Studio: Technician).

I am going to give away my Toon Girl 2.5D character. Includes the head rig and a body. I also have another male character so they would be a "set".

I can assure you these rigs are worth at least $150 each. There is at least 150 to 200 hours of development in them. They can support lip sync from dat files (papagayo) using an optional script and will include actions for phonemes (pro only).

These head rigs are smoothly animated and appear "3D". All motion of the head turn is controlled by a single bone with additional bones for face controls. All controls include labels.

I plan to continue development and additional changes/features will always be available to the members of lowrest.

I will be making an announcement on Lowrestv and sending an email to all the members as soon as they are ready.

http://www.lowrestv.com/images/compound ... d_rig2.mp4






------------------------------------

Option B:

Return your money.

I will be creating a page on the site for people to make their choice, get their money back or receive both free characters. I hope you choose the free characters.

-vern

[dazza101]

The rigs look great Vern, and I can't talk for anyone else, but I completely understand how life and work can get in the way of the best laid plans. This is a very generous offer you are making and I really appreciate the way you have resolved this. I learned a lot from lowrestv and think I got my money's worth out of the site already. This is just icing on the cake. Thank you

[heyvern]

I may have decide on one or the other. I added a poll to this topic to see what the majority opinion is.

If only a few people want their money back instead of the characters I can handle that separately. It's going to be very tricky to have both options on my site and not have people getting the money and the characters. The best solution would be one or the other for everyone.

-vern

[ulrik]

Hi Vern, nice to see you around here again
about the poll, I voted for the rigs, it would be nice to see how you have made these great rigs.
cheers!

[heyvern]

Thanks for the support! I really appreciate it.

... it would be nice to see how you have made these great rigs.
cheers!

A long time ago I was going to try and "explain" how it's done so people could do their own.... yikes. It aint easy. As a matter of fact I have only really created one rig. All the modifications are subtle changes and additions to the original. All the new characters use the same rig. I modify the points, add/change layers, drop in new layers. Bind points, etc.

For example the freaking ears. Same ears for all the characters, just points and fills/strokes are modified in the "open" position. They "fold up" like an umbrella when the head turns. I don't even remember how the bone constraints work for the freaking ears anymore.

You can use bone and point offset on frame 1 to completely change how the character looks. Move some of the bones around, change the points and it looks different but still works the same.

-vern

[neeters_guy]

The rigs would be nice but...they would need some good documentation to go along with them. By themselves, the rigs would be daunting to use, much less customize. (I looked at the technician rig and I was completed overwhelmed. )

[Rhoel]

Why not recruit some additional tutorial contributor to keep the project alive?

Rhoel

[uddhava]

heyvern
"I plan to make the tutorials free after this whole thing has been resolved with current members. "

Great! I read that you were too busy to do any more work on your tutorial web page so I hadn't joined yet, so I am happy to hear that I will be able to study the more advanced tutorials for free soon. Sorry you are too busy to continue working on more tutorials though.

Nice to hear from you again.

udd

[chucky]

Hey, Vern I always thought Lowrest turned to the dark side a little .

It was a shame, we lost some of your knowledge and camaraderie when you went all "corporate" on us, maybe we should all only share tips through credit card?

And what with the great AS mutiny and all , this site went very very quite for some time.
Seriously though I know gnomon, animation mentor, digital tutors and all the rest do a ripping trade in tutorial. I really think AS needs a larger user base and more commercial application for it to become in any way profitable for you with the AS tutes.
I say (not for selfish reasons), free the lot up and- let SM release the characters with the software and reap the rewards of your newly improved legendary status. Let the uninitiated skip through the daisies of your wisdom!
BTW I hadn't seen the guy character before, looks truly awesome, are there any samples of it in action?

[Mikdog]

Vern man...

Wondered what on earth happened to you.

I posted some AS stuff up for sale but kind of started feeling like a commercially-spammy-guy so decided to take it down. I dunno. Something about the AS community that feels so small and kind of...uncommercial that I guess kind of makes it kind of special.

I gave a talk at a tertiary education place in Cape Town today to final year students. Kind of weird because I'm the same age as them probably. Gave a demonstration of Anime Studio Pro and how the bones worked. Kind of neat, I enjoy using this program that not a whole lot of people have heard of.

Anyways, good luck with figuring out what to do with lowres.tv

Peacely.

[F.M.]

Mikdog we measure your age in animation years. You are old DUDE!

[thatonejonguy]

HeyVern, thanks for the update on lowrestv.

One quick question about the rigs. Will they be compatible with ASP 5.6? or just 6+?

Thanks
-Jon

[heyvern]

HeyVern, thanks for the update on lowrestv.

One quick question about the rigs. Will they be compatible with ASP 5.6? or just 6+?

Thanks
-Jon

Hmm.... good question. Currently they are 6+ only. I started development in 5x and sort of migrated to 6. I don't think the layer scripts have anything that won't work in 5 but would need to test it.

The big issue is converting them BACKWARDS to the older file format... which is NOT an easy task. I have to use a bunch of regex scripts in a text editor. It's a tricky process but not impossible.

-vern

[thatonejonguy]

HeyVern, thanks for the update on lowrestv.

One quick question about the rigs. Will they be compatible with ASP 5.6? or just 6+?

Thanks
-Jon

Hmm.... good question. Currently they are 6+ only. I started development in 5x and sort of migrated to 6. I don't think the layer scripts have anything that won't work in 5 but would need to test it.

The big issue is converting them BACKWARDS to the older file format... which is NOT an easy task. I have to use a bunch of regex scripts in a text editor. It's a tricky process but not impossible.

-vern

Thanks for the quick reply.

I figured you were probably developing them in 6, since that's what you use in the tuts.

I understand if it's too much of a hassle (or not possible) to reformat them for 5.6, but I will say I'd prefer the learning value of these rigs as opposed to a refund.

-Jon

[heyvern]

If you want a version in 5 you got it. It is a bit tricky to do, but not impossible. My only concern might be performance. I think 6 had some "under the hood" improvements that improved performance. I am almost certain there were no script issues. I will probably not continue improvements beyond this version of the characters though. I find developing and working in 6 so much better, plus there ARE some new scripting features I never tried out that would improve the characters.

And now that Sarina announced Anime Studio 7 will be launched "today" I will have THREE versions to deal with.

-vern